Among the Great Masters of Music Part 7

She was silent.

"Now, out with it," said he. "I see it all clearly enough. After he had made you a thousand promises he has forsaken you. Is it not so?"

"Alas! poor fellow, he has indeed forsaken me, but he is quite innocent."

"How has that happened?"

"He has drawn a bad number in the conscription, and must go off for a soldier. I shall never see him again!" sobbed the poor girl.

"But can't you buy a subst.i.tute for him?"

"How could I get such a large sum? Fifteen hundred francs is the lowest price, for there is a report that a war will soon break out,"

said she.

Paganini said no more, but when Nicette had left the room, he took his pocketbook and wrote in it, "To think what can be done for poor Nicette."

It was toward Christmas-time, and Paganini's health was improved, when one afternoon Nicette came into the room where he was, and announced that a box had come, addressed to Signer Paganini. It was brought in, and the first thing which he pulled out was a large wooden shoe.

"A wooden shoe," said Paganini, smiling. "Some of these excellent ladies wish to compare me with a child, who always receives presents and never gives any. Well, who knows but that this shoe may earn its weight in gold?"

Nothing now was seen of Paganini for three days, during which time his clever hand had transformed the shoe into a well-sounding instrument.

Soon afterward appeared an advertis.e.m.e.nt announcing that, on New Year's eve, Paganini would give a concert, and play five pieces on the violin and five on a wooden shoe. A hundred tickets at twenty francs each were instantly sold. Paganini duly appeared, and played on his old violin as he alone ever did. Then, taking up the wooden shoe, he commenced a descriptive fantasia. There it was,--the departure of the conscript, the cries of his betrothed at the parting, the camp life, the battle and victory, the return-rejoicings, and marriage-bells, all were vividly portrayed.

The company departed, but in the corner of the room stood Nicette, sobbing bitterly.

"Here, Nicette," said Paganini, going up to her, "are two thousand francs,--five hundred more than you require to purchase a subst.i.tute for your betrothed. That you may be able to begin housekeeping at once, take this shoe-violin and sell it for as much as you can get for it."

Nicette did so, and a wealthy collector of curiosities gave her a very large sum indeed for Paganini's wooden shoe.

Here is another anecdote of Paganini, as related by one who took part in some of the frequent demands upon his goodness of heart. When Paganini was in London, he resided at No. 12 Great Pulteney Street, in a house belonging to the Novellos, next door to which was a "young ladies'" school, kept by a humpbacked old lady. The girls were perfectly aware who their next-door neighbour was, and, with the fondness of female youth for mischief, had nicknamed Paganini "the devil."

Now, in order to avoid being heard from the street, "the devil" used to practise his violin in a back room, which happened to be divided only by a thin part.i.tion from the next house. The adjoining room was one devoted by the old lady to the most advanced of her pupils, and here they were allowed to do their needlework apart from the others, and were frequently left to themselves.

When the cat's away, however, the mice will play. The temptation to make overtures to "the devil" was too great for the young ladies; and whenever they heard him in his room, while one kept a lookout at the door for the intrusions of "old humpback," there was a delicate "tat-tat-tat" at the part.i.tion, and a half-singing, half-speaking call, "Pag-an-in-ee, Pag-an-in-ee--the Carnival--'Carnival de Venise';"

whereupon he would go to his window, open it, and accede to the request, playing the piece exactly as he did in public, nor did the maestro ever once fail to gratify the wishes of his fair neighbours.

"Paganini received some enthusiastic receptions in his time, but probably never a more spontaneous outburst than that which came from a son of Erin's Isle, after one of his performances in Dublin. On the occasion in question, Paganini had just completed that successful effort, the rondo _a la Sicilienne_ from 'La Clochette,' in which was a silver bell accompaniment to the fiddle, producing a most original effect (one of those effects, we presume, which have tended to a.s.sociate so much of the marvellous with the name of this genius). No sooner had the outburst of applause ended, than the excited Paddy in the gallery shouted out as loud as he was able:

"'Arrah now, Paganini, just take a drop o' whisky, my darling, and ring the bell again like that!'

"At a soiree given by Troupenas, the music publisher, in Paris, in 1830, Paganini gave one of the most wonderful exhibitions of his skill.

Rossini, Tamburini, Lablache, Rubini, De Beriot, and Malibran were of the party. Malibran, after singing one of her spirited arias, challenged Paganini, who said, 'Madam, how could I dare, with all the advantages you possess in beauty and your incomparable voice, take up your glove?' His declining was of no avail; the whole company, aware that such an opportunity might never occur again, urged him most strongly, and finally persuaded him to send for his violin. After an introduction, in which gleamed now and then the motive of Malibran's song, he gave the whole melody with additional _fiorituras_, so that the audience, amazed and overwhelmed, could not help confessing that he was the master. Malibran herself was most emphatic of all in proclaiming him the victor."

Paganini's favourite violin was a Joseph Guarnerius. An Italian amateur, who evidently knew its value, lent it to the great maestro, and, after hearing him play upon it, declared that no other hand should touch it, and presented it to Paganini. He left it to his native city of Genoa, where it is preserved in the town hall.

Ferdinand Barth, who painted "Paganini in Prison," was the son of a carpenter, and was born in Bavaria in the early forties. For some time he worked as a wood carver, and then began to paint, and studied at the Munich Academy, under Piloty. Probably his best known picture is "Choosing the Casket," in which he has depicted the familiar scene from the "Merchant of Venice."

MENDELSSOHN.

Like Mozart, the composer of the "Songs without Words" had a sister, a few years older than himself, who was possessed of great musical talent.

Mendelssohn's sister, f.a.n.n.y, was born in 1805. In 1829 she became the wife of Wilhelm Hensel, a noted historical and portrait painter.

Probably the most valuable and interesting of his works is the series of portraits of all the celebrities who, from time to time, were the guests of the Mendelssohn family. They number more than a thousand drawings, and include, besides likenesses of poets, painters, and philosophers, portraits of many people famous in the annals of music,--Weber, Paganini, Ernst, Hiller, Liszt, Clara Schumann, Gounod, Clara Novello, Lablache, and Grisi.

Rockstro tells the story of f.a.n.n.y Mendelssohn's early death in the following words:

"On Friday afternoon, the 14th of May, 1847, Madame Hensel, the beloved sister f.a.n.n.y, to whom, from earliest infancy, Felix, the child, the boy, the man, had committed every secret of his beautiful art life; the kindred spirit, with whom he had shared his every dream before his first attempt to translate it into sound; the faithful friend who had been more to him than any other member of the happy circle in the Leipziger Stra.s.se, of which, from first to last, she was the very life and soul,--f.a.n.n.y Hensel, the sister, the artist, the poet, while conducting a rehearsal of the music for the next bright Sunday gathering, was suddenly seized with paralysis; suffered her hands to fall powerless from the piano at which she had so often presided; and, an hour before midnight, was called away to join the beloved parents whose death had been as sudden and painless as her own. She had hoped and prayed that she, too, might pa.s.s away as they had done, and her prayer was granted; to her exceeding gain, but to the endless grief of the brother who had loved her as himself. On Sunday morning, in place of the piano, a coffin, covered with flowers, stood in the well-known hall in the Garden House. And the life, of which that Garden House had so long been the cherished home, became henceforth a memory of the past."

An English lady, Mrs. Florence Fenwick Miller, known not only as a writer, but as an ardent advocate of woman suffrage, has in one of her books written a chapter which she ent.i.tles "A Genius Wasted--f.a.n.n.y Mendelssohn." She says: "One of the saddest instances with which the world has ever become acquainted, of gifts repressed and faculties wasted because of the s.e.x of their possessor, is that of f.a.n.n.y Mendelssohn, the sister of the famous composer, Felix Mendelssohn.

With natural powers apparently fully as great as her brother's, f.a.n.n.y was not, indeed, denied all opportunity of cultivating them, but was effectually prevented from utilising them, and, therefore, from fully developing her genius or from displaying its force."

These two Jewish children were members of a family in which both intellect, in its widest meaning, and musical talent, specifically, were hereditary. Their mother began to teach music both to the boy and the girl in their early years. f.a.n.n.y, who was five years older than her brother, was naturally more advanced than he; and when the two children were allowed to show off their powers as pianists, it was f.a.n.n.y who always won the most applause. They pa.s.sed from their mother's elementary tuition to that of superior teachers, L. Berger and afterward Zeiter, and the former of these indicated f.a.n.n.y as being, in his opinion, the future great musician.

But a father and mother with a maiden of genius on their hands were like a hen whose duckling takes to the water. The difference of the training of f.a.n.n.y and Felix Mendelssohn, as distinguished from their musical education, is effectually indicated by the following letter from their father to f.a.n.n.y, written when she was fourteen years old.

After referring in terms of satisfaction to the compositions of both his son and daughter, Abraham Mendelssohn proceeded to say to the latter of his two gifted children:

"What you wrote to me about your musical occupations, with reference to and in comparison with Felix, was both rightly thought and expressed.

Music will, perhaps, become _his_ profession (Felix was at this time only nine years old. f.a.n.n.y was fourteen), whilst for _you_ it can and must be only an ornament, never the root of your being and doing. We may, therefore, pardon him some ambition and desire to be acknowledged in a pursuit which appears to him important, while it does you credit that you have always shown yourself good and sensible in these matters; and your very joy at the praise he earns proves that you might, in his place, have merited equal approval. Remain true to these sentiments and to this line of conduct; they are feminine, and only what is truly feminine is an ornament to your s.e.x."

Ten more precious years of youth, the years of training and of hope, pa.s.sed by; the different ideal was persistently forced by the parents upon the two, although f.a.n.n.y, more fortunate than many girls, was, nevertheless, allowed to study her art as well as she could in intervals of housekeeping. On her twenty-third birthday, her father again felt it necessary to check his gifted daughter in her pursuit of her art. He wrote her a letter in which he praised her conduct in the household.

"However," he added, "you must still improve. You must become still more steady and collected, and prepare more earnestly and eagerly for your real calling, the _only_ calling of a woman,--I mean the state of a housewife. Women have a difficult task; the constant occupation with apparent trifles, the interception of each drop of rain, that it may not evaporate, but be conducted into the right channel, the unremitting attention to every detail,--all these are the weighty duties of a woman."

The time came, at length, for f.a.n.n.y Mendelssohn to love,--that crisis came which stimulates a man in his work, and nerves him to fresh efforts to make himself successful, that he may be worthy and able to establish a home. But to a woman this brings, only too often, yet another heavy barrier in the way of success in any art or occupation.

So it was to f.a.n.n.y Mendelssohn.

"Hensel was at first dreadfully jealous . . . even of f.a.n.n.y's art. . . . Only _her_ letters have been preserved. With characteristic energy she refuses to sacrifice her brother to the jealousy with which Hensel, in the beginning, regards her love for him, but she consents to give up her friends, and even her music. . . . She never, in her thoughts, loses sight of that letter of her father's, in which he calls the vocation of a housewife the only true aim and study of a young woman, and in thinking of the man of her choice she earnestly devotes herself to this aim."

What reprobation and what just indignation would be showered upon a woman who should try to make the man of her choice give up his art, to attend to her private comforts!

Although f.a.n.n.y's good father and mother, yielding to the prejudices of their day, had struggled to make housekeeping her main interest, and music only her recreation, yet they had not denied her musical genius a complete education. f.a.n.n.y was not only taught to play the piano in her childhood, in company with Felix, but she was also allowed to receive lessons in thorough ba.s.s and the theory of composition. She was thus rendered capable of the expression of her musical talents; and in between her household duties, after, as well as before she became a wife and mother, she often found time to compose. Much of what she wrote was of so high a character that her brother Felix felt no hesitation in putting it forth to the world as _his_ own composition!

It is, apparently, impossible to discover which, amongst the works published as those of Mendelssohn, were really those of his sister; but references now and again occur in his private letters to the fact, which thereby becomes incontrovertible, that he has claimed before the public compositions which are hers exclusively. The most famous of such pa.s.sages is one that has became widely known in consequence of its quotation in Sir Theodore Martin's "Life of the Prince Consort."

Mendelssohn is telling of his visit to the queen, at Buckingham Palace, in 1842.

"The queen said she was very fond of singing my published songs. 'You should sing one to him,' said Prince Albert, and after a little begging she said she would. And what did she choose? 'Schoner und schoner schmuckt sich;' sang it quite charmingly, in strict time and tune, and with very good execution. Then I was obliged to confess that f.a.n.n.y had written that song (which I found very hard, but pride must have a fall), and to beg her to sing one of my own also."

As her father had kept her from appearing before the public when she was young, so her brother strenuously opposed her wish to publish her work in her maturity. In the spring of 1837, f.a.n.n.y, in defiance of him, did issue one song with her own name to it. It had a great success, and Felix himself graciously wrote to her after it had been performed at a concert; "I thank you, in the name of the public, for publishing it against my wish." f.a.n.n.y's husband urged her to follow up this success by issuing more of her works. "Her mother was of the same opinion, and begged Felix to persuade f.a.n.n.y to publish. The success had not altered Felix's views, however, and he declined to persuade his sister; and f.a.n.n.y, who had herself no desire to appear in print, readily gave up the idea."

Felix's influence sufficed to debar f.a.n.n.y from all further attempt to obtain recognition, after that one song, until the year 1846, when she was forty-one years old. Then the persuasions of another musical friend led her to publish a small selection of her best work. "Felix had not altered his views, and it went against his wishes when he heard that she had made up her mind to publish. Some time pa.s.sed before he wrote on the subject at all, but on August 14th the following entry appears in her diary: 'At last Felix has written, and given me his professional blessing in the kindest manner. I know that he is not satisfied in his heart of hearts, but I am glad he has said a kind word to me about it.'"

This little volume, too, was warmly received. Encouraged by the success of her published work,--delayed till so sadly late in life,--tasting the stimulating elixir of appreciation, and knowing the fascinating encouragement of public applause, she now began composition on a larger scale than anything she had before attempted. "I am working a good deal," she wrote, "and feel that I get on,--a consciousness which, added to the glorious weather, gives me a feeling of content and happiness such as I have, perhaps, never before experienced."

Alas! it came too late. In the spring of the next year, f.a.n.n.y Mendelssohn died, aged forty-two. Her grand playing, "which made people afraid to perform in her presence," went down with her into the silence of her grave; and the musical genius and originality which should have left a lasting mark in the world faded, too, leaving but a few small tokens of what might have been.

The "Songs without Words" are more closely a.s.sociated with Mendelssohn than any other of his works. The composer considered that music is more definite than words, and these lovely songs had as exact an intention as those which were written to accompany poetry. It was in a letter of f.a.n.n.y Mendelssohn's, dated December 8, 1828, that their t.i.tle first appeared, and they are referred to as if Mendelssohn had but lately begun to write them. On the day after his arrival in London, April 24, 1832, he played the first six to Moscheles. The earliest one is No. 2, of Book 2, which Felix sent to his sister f.a.n.n.y in 1830. "In a Gondola," the last song in the first book, is said to be the earliest of the six, in date. A few only were given t.i.tles by the composer.

Six books, each containing six songs, were published during his life, and the seventh and eighth after his early death.